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Friday, 14 October 2016

Mumbai civic body admits to mistakes in revised DP

The civic body has termed them ‘drafting errors’ and decided
to correct them and present the draft DP directly the planning committee to be
formed to hear suggestions and objections.

MUMBAI:
Just a few days before the deadline for citizens to send suggestions/objections
to the revised draft Development Plan (DP) 2034, the BMC on Tuesday admitted
there were numerous errors — pointing at errors, citizens and activists have
been demanding extended extension of the deadline to study the DP further
closely.

However,
the civic body has termed them 'drafting errors' and decided to correct them
and present the draft DP directly the planning committee to be formed to hear
suggestions and objections.

An
official from BMC's DP department said, "At some places, buffer zones have
not been marked along nullahs and rivers. Also there's spillover in the marking
of different zones like industrial zones at some places [zones shown larger or
smaller]. They are all being corrected now. The other errors include
inaccuracies in the width of roads and and their names being missed out. We
have suo motu decided to make these corrections and present them before the
planning committee." The planning committee would consist of four urban
planning experts and three standing committee members.

The
BMC will also present before the committee a list of drafting errors in the
plan it is finding.

DP
department officials said they were cartographic issues and they are yet to
know the exact number of errors.

Activist
Shyama Kulkarni of AGNI Trustee said it's too late in the day for the civic
body to undertake such a corrections. "Are they trying to hoodwink
citizens by correcting the errors and calling them drafting errors? On one hand
they are not giving extension for citizens to send suggestions/objections, but
on the other they themselves are correcting errors," said Kulkarni.

Advocate
Godfrey Pimenta of the NGO Watchdog Foundation said, "If the BMC itself is
correcting the plan then it should give Mumbaikars more time to give
suggestions/objections."